Letty's Mistake
by Slo4now
Summary: After the last hijacking, Letty and Leon hauled ass out of L.A. But after a year and a half without contact with Dom and the rest of the team, Letty comes across someone who was part of Dominic's past - and may be part of ALL of their futures.
1. The Mysterious Cobra

Letty's Mistake As told by Leticia Marie Rodriguez (with occasional butt-ins by Dom Toretto)  
  
Chapter 1  
  
Oahu's North Shore, near Pipe  
  
I was lying on some beach ten minutes from my house, in a white bikini. Feeling sorry for myself. I stared out into the ocean, watching the ten- foot breakers crash around a crowd of short boarders. Reminded me of that movie, Johnny Tsunami or somethin' like that. Mostly guys out there; dark- skinned Hawaiian boys with deliciously hot bodies and great cutbacks. I sorta envied them. I wished I could somehow get a surfboard and go out there. Maybe a few of them could teach me how to do it.  
  
I was feeling sorry for myself because I was alone. When Leon and I ran to Hawaii after the last heist had gone down, I was sure I'd see my family again soon. A year and a half later, I wasn't so sure. I felt like I had deserted them, which I had. No phone calls or letters to them, no visits. I felt like a horrible little shit, just running away to save my own ass. At least I wasn't alone; Leon did it, too. He left his best friends, his family. The only family either of us had known for so many years.  
  
I missed them all terribly.I wondered how Vince was, if he made it back alive. I wondered how Mia was holding up, if Jesse came home in one piece. I wondered where they all were, if they were home, or if they went to Mexico like Dominic said they might. Dominic. Most of all, I wondered about my Dominic. I loved him so fucking much; when Leon and I first got to Hawaii, the pain of being away from him hurt so bad. It's gotten better now, but I still cry myself to sleep at the thought of how much pain I caused him when I ran away and never looked back. When I left, I was so angry with him for getting us into this situation - all for the damn money. Well, Dom. Money isn't everything. Our team, our family was shattered, torn apart. I felt like even if I tried to come back, they would have been so mad at me when I left that they would have forgotten who I was. The thought scared me and left goose bumps on my sun-warmed skin.  
  
The situation I was in felt familiar to me. Wait, it was familiar to me. When I was ten, my mother had her jerk-off boyfriend try to kill my Papi to get rid of him. She ran away with the greasy asshole, leaving me to care for my now-injured father, before the police caught them and threw 'em in jail. They ran back to Puerto Rico and that was the last time I'd ever seen her. She left to save her own ass. Like mother, like daughter.  
  
My dad died in Kosovo when I was twelve. His mother flew to L.A. from the Dominican Republic to take care of my older brother Raul and I. Raul didn't do well after Papi died and didn't like the idea of being babysat by our abuela so he moved in with some guys that had an apartment in the projects when he turned nineteen, a few months after Papi died. I hung around with the Torettos for the past twelve years, and eventually moved into their house when Dominic and I started dating, when I was eighteen. My grandmother sold our house and moved back to the Dominican Republic. I haven't heard from Raul or my mother in a long, long time.  
  
A frustrated scream dragged me out of my heavy thoughts. I sat up on my fluffy towel and looked in the direction of the yell. There weren't many people on the beach that day, mostly surfers and some spectators. And me. It came from far down the shoreline, where two dark-tanned figures seemed to be fighting and struggling against each other. I squinted to see better, but the bright sun made it hard. I finally made out the two figures.  
  
"Get off of me, Adam! Go away!" screamed a girl. She had long, straight golden blonde hair that was being tousled by the extremely muscled guy pinning her to him.  
  
"Give me back my fuckin' board and I'll let you go!" said Adam. He had a pretty damn good hold on the girl and the surfboard she was attempting to carry out to the lineup.  
  
"It isn't yours, you prick!" The chick, now sounding near tears, went limp in Adam's arms as if she had given up.  
  
"I gave it to you, and I can take it BACK!"  
  
"You stupid shit! You GAVE it to me. It's MINE now!" I didn't like the way this guy was treating a fellow chick. He might have been hurting her, holding her that tight. I was NOT going to take this lightly. I gathered my slim form and stood, ready to smash this asshole's head in. Before he could try anything else with her, I stormed over to him and uppercutted him in the jaw. He released his hold on the girl and howled in pain.  
  
"You BITCH!" he screamed at me. It didn't faze me one bit.  
  
"You DICK!" I screamed back. "Get back out there, man! It's just a stupid surfboard. Get over it, punk!" Adam's mouth was bleeding. I probly knocked a few teeth loose. Oh, well. His dentist was gonna have a field day.  
  
"Fucking hit me again - wait, if I ever see you again, you'll be fucking sorry!" Adam yelled at me. He held his aching jaw.  
  
"Ooooh, I'm shaking in my pretty white bikini." I smirked at him and crossed my arms. He shook his head and kicked some sand at me, but wind blew it back in his face. I laughed out loud and got ready to turn to the girl, but when I turned to face her, there was nothing in her spot but the sweet scent of lightly fading perfume. Baffled, I watched Adam walk away, cursing to himself in Hawaiian. I thought I recognized the words 'fuck' and 'bitch'. He spit some blood out and dove back into the roaring surf.  
  
I began walking back to my towel, intent on packing up my shit and never coming to this beach again. I threw everything into my ripped-to-shit old book bag and jammed my feet into some flip-flops. As I was walking to this old-ass faded Iroc Camaro that Leon bought me for 300 bucks, I saw the most beautiful, shiniest black Mustang that I had ever seen parked a few cars away from mine. A Cobra SVT, to be exact, probably a 2002. Most likely stick shift and supercharged. It had a full body kit, expensive rims, and dark tints. A white and teal surfboard was sticking out of one of the rear windows. I thought I recognized that board.  
  
Someone started her up, because the purring of that engine charged right through me. It had been awhile since I was near a car that nice. On a hunch of who the driver was, I tiptoed up to the car but before I could get within ten feet of it, the engine revved and the sleek, shiny machine roared away and out of the beach parking lot. A wave of blonde hair flickered out the window before the car turned out of sight. It was her! That chick Adam damn near molested about the surfboard. I knew that board looked familiar. 


	2. Dinner With Leon

When I puttered up to the house in the Iroc, Leon was sitting on the front porch, on the phone, smoking, and drinking a Corona. Probly talking to that slutty Swedish tourist he met last week, I thought bitterly. I parked the old wreck and jumped out.  
  
"Le," I called. "How you livin'?" Leon stopped talking, smiled at me, and raised his Corona. I grabbed my book bag from the backseat and slammed the rusty door shut. As I approached the porch, I heard music. Some ska-punk Jamaican shit that was floating through the house. Leon and I had been renting the house since we got to Oahu. It was a great house, two seconds away from the ocean. The house had screens for windows and wild Hawaiian jungle plant-life decorated the front and back yards.  
  
"Listen, lemme call your hotel room back later, Olga. Letty's here.yeah, we're probly gonna go eat. Okay.sure thing, babe. Later." I heard Leon hang up the phone and the sound of his chair scraping back as he got up from the little table he was sitting at. He put out his cigarette and turned to face me. He looked down at the busted-up knuckles of my right hand. He sighed and began to walk through the front door, me at his heels.  
  
"What happened, Lett?" he said, not turning around.  
  
"Why you always gotta be fucking those skanks, Le?" I asked him, totally ignoring his question. I let the screen door slam shut. Leon whirled around to face me.  
  
"Olga ain't no skank, Lett. She's Swedish."  
  
"Okay, so she's a Swedish skank."  
  
"Lett, don't do this now. Listen, we're gonna go have somethin' to eat, then get wasted on the beach later, okay?" I threw my book bag on the tattered sofa and looked up at him. His plan did seem pretty good, and I needed to forget about the pain in my hand for a while.  
  
"Where we eatin'?" A slow smile crept across my face. Soon, Leon caught it and smiled back.  
  
"That's my girl."  
  
An hour later, Leon and I were seated across from each other at the Big Kahuna Café on Main Street, watching the orange sun fade behind the horizon. I had thrown a vintage t-shirt and short shorts over my bikini and Leon had a black wife beater on with wildly patterned board shorts. We looked like a coupla freakin' surfers, for Christ's sake. I had to laugh - Leon out of a car and on a surfboard. Pretty fuckin' funny.  
  
"So you gonna tell me what the hell happened to your hand?" Leon asked me, munching on a pineapple wedge. I took a sip of peach iced tea and glanced around at the waiters and waitresses, bustling about the restaurant. Someone had come to take our empty plates away from us after we had paid the bill.  
  
"I hit some guy."  
  
"Big surprise."  
  
"Ha! It was a joke. The asshole deserved it."  
  
"Must've, for you to have split his shit like that. Broke his nose, huh?" Leon finished off his pineapple wedge and sipped his strawberry daiquiri.  
  
"No, his jaw. I told him good luck finding a dentist that can Bondo your teeth back in." Leon laughed.  
  
"So, what brought it on?" pressed Leon.  
  
"He was playin' kinda rough with a chick. I couldn't let it continue so I told him to back off. When he didn't, I gave him a knuckle sandwich. Simple as that." I snagged a piece of pineapple and shoved it into my mouth.  
  
"Hmmm, impressive."  
  
"But the chick ran off! After I was done beating his jaw to mush, I wanted to say something to her, but she was gone, man! I saw her when I was leaving. She got into the sweetest Mustang Cobra I've ever seen. Supercharged," I said. "I wonder if I'll ever see her again."  
  
"Maybe. The North Shore's a small little place, Lett." Leon finished off his daiquiri.  
  
"Maybe. Hey, how much money are we sitting on, anyway?" I asked, changing the subject.  
  
"Enough to live here forever." Leon smirked. I grew quiet.  
  
"I don't wanna live here forever, Le. I wanna go home to Dom." I stared into the splintery wooden picnic table.  
  
"We can't, Letty. It's too risky. Stupid Spilner or O'Connor, of whatever the fuck his name is probly turned 'em all in. He probly tried to turn US in, but we're here in Hawaii. We told everyone we went to Mexico." Leon lit a cigarette and took a long drag. He offered me one, and I accepted. I didn't smoke very often, just when I was feeling sorry for myself. Which was 24/7. "It probly won't be long 'til they find us here."  
  
"I think we should call them, or Mia at least. We haven't had any contact in a year and a half, Le. We owe it to them to let them know we're all right." Leon stared into space, letting his cigarette burn into a stick of gray ash. A few minutes later, he spoke.  
  
"Okay, as soon as we get home, call Mia. But then, we're getting drunk!" Leon said.  
  
"Sure thing, pal. Knee-walking drunk!"  
  
"So drunk that you'll need a shovel to scrape me off the ground tomorrow morning!"  
  
"So wasted that two-foot waves will seem like tsunamis or somethin'!" I began to crack up. Leon joined me and we got up from the picnic table. As we headed to my junk Camaro, Leon put his arm around me in a best friends way. He was, of course, my best friend. The only thing I had left in the world. Or, so I thought. 


	3. The Decision to Go Home

"Hello, Toretto residence," a girl's voice answered.  
  
"Mia, how you livin', girl?" I asked warily and quietly, unsure of what her reaction to hearing my voice would be like. For a few seconds, I heard silence. A screech of joy followed.  
  
"Oh, Letty! Hi! How are you? Where are you? Are you still with Leon? Where are you staying?" Mia began bombarding me with questions. She was still squealing a little.  
  
"Whoa, whoa, Mia. One thing at a time!" I chuckled.  
  
"Are you guys all right?" Mia asked after taking a deep breath.  
  
"We're fine, we're fine. We're in Hawaii."  
  
"Hawaii?" asked Mia incredulously.  
  
"The Aloha State."  
  
"I thought you went to Mexico!" "We faked everyone out so Spilner couldn't find us. How you livin' without him, Mia?"  
  
"I'm managing. He moved down to Miami, to be a private detective."  
  
"I'm sorry, Mi."  
  
"Yeah, yeah. There are other fish in the sea, you know?"  
  
"Yeah, I know. It's pretty tempting here, with all these fucking hot surfers with their fucking hot bodies."  
  
"I'd love to go there someday!" Mia laughed, and then changed the subject. "Hey, I got good news. Brian linked the hijackings to the Trans and turns out he got the whole force to believe that it was them. Charges against us have been dropped, but there are no Trans left to throw in jail."  
  
"What do you mean?" I asked, suddenly afraid. Mia took a deep breath before explaining.  
  
"The Trans were after Jesse because they raced for slips at Race Wars, right?"  
  
"Yeah, I knew that part," I replied.  
  
"Well, after the last hijacking went down, everyone came back here. That's when you and Leon booked to God-knows-where. Mexico, you told us. So anyways, Vince was airlifted to the hospital, and when we got back to the house, Brian showed up in the Supra. We were all so disgusted with him, but thankful that he was able to save Vince and get him to the hospital. So, Brian showed up and the second Brian showed up, Jesse came back!"  
  
"He did? Was he okay?" I wanted to know.  
  
"He was okay but extremely shaken up. So, wouldn't you just know, the Trans rode by on crotch rockets and opened fire on us. They shot Jesse in the stomach, Lett." I gasped as my own stomach turned to ice.  
  
"Oh, my God."  
  
"He almost didn't make it. They had to do about five to seven surgeries to repair the damage done to his intestines. Please, before you tell Leon about this, make sure he's sitting down."  
  
"Okay," I said, dazed.  
  
"So anyways. Jesse's okay now, he just has to take it easy. The Trans shot the Jetta to shit; we've all been working hard to fix it up. So anyways, after they shot Jess, I was left to hold him and call the ambulance. But Dom and Brian raced after the Trans in the Charger and the Supra."  
  
"The Charger?" I asked. "He never drives that car!"  
  
"He was so upset that he wanted to kill the Trans himself. So he and Brian went after them, and then Dom hit Lance with the Charger and he rolled down a hill and died later at the bottom of it because no one found him for a while. He bled to death internally. So Brian went after Johnny and then gunned him down under an overpass not far from where Lance was dying. Johnny died instantly." I gasped again. This time, Leon was strolling into the kitchen just in time to hear me gasp. He had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and was probably coming into the kitchen for a beer.  
  
"You okay?" he mouthed to me. I nodded.  
  
"Go ahead, Mia. Leon just walked into the kitchen."  
  
"Oh, tell him I said hello and that I'm glad he's okay!" Mia exclaimed. I turned to Leon.  
  
"Mia tells you hello and she's glad you're okay," I told Leon. He smiled.  
  
"I love ya, Mia!" he called.  
  
"He loves you," I told Mia.  
  
"Awww, I love you too, Le."  
  
"She loves you too," I told Leon. He had gotten a Corona out of the fridge and had started to chug it. He retreated back to the living room.  
  
"Anyways, go ahead, Mi," I told her.  
  
"So with the Trans dead, Brian and Dom didn't know what to do. So, being the idiots that they are, they raced down by the train tracks. Just as they escaped being creamed by a train, Dom's car was hit by a truck and the Charger got totaled," Mia finished. I gasped again.  
  
"Dom's arm was messed up and he got cuts and bruises. But get this! Brian gave him the keys to the Supra and let him escape! When he did, he drove back here, packed a duffel bag with some things, and boarded a plane to Mexico. He stayed there for about a month then came back because Mexico got too rough. I think he went down there to look for you and Leon."  
  
"That's so awesome, so Brian got us all off? Even Leon and me?"  
  
"Yeah, everyone's pretty much forgotten about the whole thing. Brian quit his job with the LAPD, he's a private detective now."  
  
"That's good," I said.  
  
"He misses L.A., but he likes his new life in Miami. He calls often and says he misses me and that after all the pain he's caused our family, he just can't come around here anymore. I think that's nonsense; we're just so glad he saved Vince's life and got Dom and you guys off the hook. The Trans are dead and Dom returned to street racing recently. He's dominating again. He got a new car."  
  
"What kind of car?" Mia laughed.  
  
"Well, he put about fifteen grand more into a certain maroon Silvia," laughed Mia. I gasped for about the tenth time since Mia and I began talking.  
  
"Ooooh, I can't wait to see her," I said, referring to my purring baby that I so mournfully left back at the fort.  
  
"She's a beauty. I sorta took your place on the team for a while. Dom put some more money into my Integra and that thing's running elevens."  
  
"No shit."  
  
"You guys HAVE to come back, Lett. Dom hasn't been the same. He doesn't hang around those damn racer sluts anymore. He pushes away any girl that comes onto him and I know for a fact that he hasn't BEEN with a girl since the last time you were here. It's pathetic."  
  
"I can't believe it. I thought he'd be whorin' up the whole damn city!"  
  
"Nope. He misses you so much, Lett. When he's not racing, he sits in your room with your clothes and pillow and just holds them. He did this a lot at the beginning. Now, he just sleeps with a shirt of yours. He sometimes pretends that you're still here. He saves places for you and even goes as far as saying, "Wait, everybody. Wait for Letty!" It's awful. Please, please, please come back!" Mia begged. I sighed.  
  
"But so many things have changed, Mi. I'm not the same person as I was with him! I've grown up, I think."  
  
"We all have grown up, Letty. But Dom's grown distant, and he doesn't laugh as much as he used to. He's taken up pot smoking. He sits up in your room sometimes and smokes himself retarded. Please come back and make him stop!"  
  
"Mia, I don't know." My heart began aching for Dom's pain. "Listen. Just think about it. You know you always have a home here and we love you so much."  
  
"Are they upset at us for leavin' and not callin'?" I asked her, referring to the rest of the team.  
  
"They were at first, but everyone got over that and now they miss you more than ever and are wondering if you're still alive."  
  
"Okay, just give Leon and I some time to cancel the rent on our house and pack our shit." Mia began squealing.  
  
"Oh, wonderful! I can't believe it! You guys are coming back to the fort!"  
  
"Wait, I forgot to ask how Vince is," I remembered.  
  
"He's doing okay, his arm was mangled. He has major scarring, and he lost some of the nerve functions. He'll never be able to race good, but he's taking it slow for now." My stomach leapt and the thought of V never being able to rejoin the team.  
  
"Tell everyone that Leon and I love them and we're so sorry. I haven't been doing good, either. I think of Dom and my mother so much, Leon's fucking all kinds of skanks."  
  
"Well, get back here! Your rooms still look the same."  
  
"Okay, well I gotta go. Leon wants to get knee-walking drunk again tonight.tell Dom that I love him, aiight?"  
  
"Okay," Mia said softly. "He's up in your room right now, probably lying on the bed cuddled up with your ratty Fox Racing t-shirt."  
  
"That was my favorite shirt!" I exclaimed, laughing.  
  
"And that's why he's holding it."  
  
"Awww, Mia, we're coming home!"  
  
"Get here soon, okay? Call us as much as you can."  
  
"Okay, later, Mia."  
  
"Bye, Lett." We hung up. I put the phone down on the kitchen table and left the kitchen. I found Leon sitting on the couch, watching an old rerun of Saturday Night Live. I plopped next to him.  
  
"We're goin' home." "Huh?"  
  
"O'Connor got us all off the hook. They want us home!"  
  
"You serious?"  
  
"As a heart attack, man!" I clapped him on the back.  
  
"When do you wanna go?" Leon asked me.  
  
"Soon as possible. We needa cancel the rent on this joint and sell those junk ass cars," I said, referring to my Iroc and Leon's 1984 Cutlass. Then we can get on a plane and go!" I said.  
  
"So are you sure that we won't get arrested the second we step off the plane?" Leon asked me.  
  
"I'm not sure of that, but I doubt it, Le. C'mon, let's get wasted!" Leon followed me to the kitchen and got us some drinks.  
  
"Let's celebrate, dawg. To us, to the team, to L.A., and to GOING HOME!" cried Leon. I began laughing as I chugged a Corona. 


	4. Leaving Hawaii Behind

I woke up to someone pounding my head with a rubber mallet. Wait, I just had a fucking hell of a hangover. I winced at the blinding pain as I rolled over onto my stomach. I buried my face in my pillow and remembered the events of the previous evening.  
  
Last night was wild. After I broke the news to him about us going home, Leon and I got so trashed that we ended up rolling around on the front lawn, laughing hysterically. We couldn't even get up so we slept on the lawn for a few hours. We woke up at around three and dragged ourselves inside the house and into our rooms where we promptly fell asleep until about two o'clock in the afternoon.  
  
We slept most of the day away. I had slept in my clothes, so when I made my way into the bathroom that morning, I needed to remove my shorts, t- shirt, and bathing suit in order to shower. I stepped into the hot, steamy mist and let the droplets fall over my aching head and tired body. I lathered up a washcloth and quickly bathed; I washed and conditioned my hair next. After I was rinsed, I dried off and wrapped a fluffy towel around myself.  
  
"Letty?" I heard Leon call from the next room.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Are you up?"  
  
"Nope, still sleeping, Le."  
  
"Bitch." I chuckled at his last comment and exited the bathroom. I shut myself into my bedroom and opened my closet. I took a yellow halter-top that tied at the neck out of the closet and threw on a thong and baggy, navy blue Dickies. When I was dressed, I took a long look in the full- length mirror.  
  
I had changed so much in the past year and a half. My hair grew down to my waist and was an even darker shade of black than when we left because my highlights grew out. My skin was so tan that it looked almost brown. I filled out a little more, grew a little bit of an ass from all those coconuts we've been eating. Dom may or may not recognize me, but as long as I recognized him, all would be good.  
  
"Letty, can you bring me some Tylenol?" called Leon. Sighing, I walked back to the bathroom, filled a cup with water, and took a jar of pills out of the cabinet. I took them to Leon, who was lying shirtless in his bed with a pillow over his head.  
  
"Here you go, shit-for-brains," I said, placing the water and pills on his nightstand.  
  
"Thanks, Fucker-Fuckington." He struggled to sit up and when he was, he took the pills and rinsed them down with some water.  
  
"What do you wanna do today? Wanna go to the realtor's office and cancel our rent?" he asked me.  
  
"Fine with me." I didn't know the right time to break the news about Jesse to Leon, but I figured on the way to the airport would be a good time, since I was going to be driving.  
  
Two hours later, Leon and I were back at our old house, packing up our personal belongings. Our furniture had come with the house, and so had most of the stuff in it, but we managed to get about five boxes, plus our duffel bags that we had packed the day Leon and I left for Hawaii, packed with clothes and stuff. While Leon taped up the boxes, I got on the phone to United Airlines, the only airline I had the number to.  
  
"Aloha, United Airlines, how may I help you?" a woman asked after I tapped in the number.  
  
"Yeah, hi. I'd like a one-way flight to Los Angeles for two people, as soon as possible." I heard computer keys clicking away.  
  
"Okay, I'm showing two seats in First Class for six o'clock tonight."  
  
"That's perfect!" I cried. "I'll take them."  
  
"Name please?" I hesitated, and then remembered that O'Connor got us off the hook.  
  
"Letty Rodriguez."  
  
"And your credit card number and expiration date." I gave her the number and the date.  
  
"Okay, Ms. Rodriguez. You may pick up your tickets inside the airport before your flight. Enjoy your trip," the woman told me.  
  
"Thanks," I said. After I hung up, Leon strolled up to me.  
  
"I'm done with the boxes. What time's our flight?" asked Leon, from under an extremely ugly bucket hat.  
  
"Six. Let's get these boxes into the Cutlass and find someone to take the Iroc off our hands."  
  
"Sure thing, boss." Leon smirked. I smacked the hell out of his arm and began to lift a box. Leon followed suit and within ten minutes all of our things that we were taking back to L.A. were loaded in the old wreck.  
  
"That's the last of 'em," Leon announced as the last box went into the car.  
  
"Great. Let's get rid of the Iroc."  
  
"Wait, I wanna say goodbye to Olga!" whined Leon.  
  
"Forget her, Le. You'll never see her again!" I was starting to get irritated with him.  
  
"Fine," Leon mumbled. He was probly gonna sulk the entire time. I ended up being wrong - I guess she really didn't mean anything to him, after all. Ha!  
  
With an hour to get to the airport and sell the Iroc, Leon and I locked the house and put the key next to the door. The rent person was coming to pick it up before six, but Leon and I wanted to be out of there. Before we had locked up, we made sure that nothing of ours was left. There was even still food in the refrigerator!  
  
Leon, dressed in a white wife beater, baggy blue jeans, and that hideous hat, was in front of me in the Cutlass. I saw him pulling to a stop in front of a group of teenage boys along the side of our street. I pulled up beside him and got out to join him in front of the boys.  
  
"Hey, boys. I know that you'd like a car, so this Iroc Camaro could be yours for only.two hundred bucks. The ladies would dig it. Whaddya say?" Leon dealed. I stood next to him in my yellow halter-top and Dickies. The boys looked somewhat interested, and one even went over to the Camaro to check it out.  
  
"It runs like a dream," I piped up. "With a little work."  
  
"We got one seventy-five." A fat kid jumped down from the fence he was sitting on and stood in front of Leon and I.  
  
"Sold!" Leon shouted. The kid happily handed over the cash (though Lord knows where the hell those boys acquired such a large lump sum) and Leon handed over the keys. I quickly retrieved my cell phone from the front seat and Leon and I jumped into the Cutlass. The boys all seemed to want to be the one to drive it, but eventually the fat kid started it up and the boys piled into the backseat. They drove off happily.  
  
I started up the Cutlass and Leon and I drove off toward the airport. 


	5. Damn, we missed spaghetti, Lett?

On the highway to the airport, with thirty minutes to spare before our plane took off, I decided that now would be a good time to tell Leon about his little buddy Jesse.  
  
"Le, I got somethin' to tell ya," I began.  
  
"What, Lett?" He lit another cigarette and took a long ass drag, the floppy part of the bucket hat blowing in the wind.  
  
"Ya know, just after we left the fort to go to Hawaii, Jesse came back." Leon turned toward me.  
  
"He did?"  
  
"Yeah, bro. He pulled up in the Jetta like, a half hour after we left for the airport."  
  
"Damn, we missed him."  
  
"But, uh, somethin' bad happened, Le." Leon's stomach suddenly turned to ice. He smushed his cigarette out on the outside part of the door and turned to look at me.  
  
"What."  
  
"The Trans came by to get him, just after he pulled up to the fort. They opened fire on everyone there, Brian, Dom, Mia, Jesse."  
  
"Shit." Leon pretty much knew what was coming.  
  
"Jesse got hit," I told him. Leon was silent, as if he hadn't quite comprehended what I said. "In the stomach." Leon remained quiet, but I could now see big tears forming in his eyes and begin rolling down his ruddy cheeks.  
  
"Is he dead, Letty?" whispered Leon.  
  
"No, no, he's alive." Leon sighed a sigh of relief.  
  
"But what's wrong?"  
  
"He had to go through, like, seven surgeries to fix his intestines. He's taking it easy at the fort." I glanced at Leon again.  
  
"Shit, why didn't ya tell me sooner, Lett?" Leon lit another cigarette and dragged from it like there was no tomorrow. To calm his nerves, I guessed.  
  
"I didn't want you to get worried about going home, ya know?"  
  
"Yeah, yeah." We drove in silence.  
  
When we reached the airport, we had to hurry to get our boxes checked in. Leon and I would be taking our duffel bags as carry-on, while the five boxes went to the luggage hold in the bottom of the plane. We pulled up to the luggage loading area. A man wearing a pilot outfit and a nametag that read 'Skycap' put tags on all of our boxes and assured us that we'd get the boxes in L.A. A valet parking guy came up to us.  
  
"Can I park your car for you?" Leon handed him the keys.  
  
"Sure thing, bro. In the back lot, where you park long-term stuff."  
  
"Absolutely, sir." With that, the man drove off in the Cutlass. I laughed at Leon.  
  
"You know, no one is ever going to come back for that car!" I snorted.  
  
"I know, Lett. That's the brains of it all!" exclaimed Leon, who was feeling better about the whole Jesse thing. In a few short hours, we'd see them all for the first time in a year and a half. Leon and I raced inside to get our tickets and soon, we were the last passengers to board the 747.  
  
"First Class, Lett? What's the occasion?" Leon exclaimed as we buckled ourselves into leather seats. I shrugged.  
  
"It was all they had open." I smirked.  
  
After the plane took off, Leon grew bored. Dinner wasn't for another hour, and the in-flight movie was some gay-ass film about street racing called The Slow and the Curious. He couldn't smoke, so he chewed on bubble gum practically the entire flight.  
  
"Le, get out your CD player, man! Quit bouncing the seat!" I exclaimed, after Leon bounced his knee up and down one two many times. He reached into his duffel bag and came up with a bunch of CDs and his CD player. He selected a CD called "Poundin' Down the Walls" by a group named The Slime Kings.  
  
"What the fuck is that shit?" I asked him, smiling.  
  
"It's 80's heavy metal," he answered. He popped The Slime Kings into the player and began to listen. So I got out my CD player and selected a Paul Van Dyk CD. I reached into my duffel bag and pulled out Super Street, but I was unable to concentrate on it. I kept thinking about going home. I was actually scared to see Dominic again, scared of how he would treat me. I was scared to see Vince's arm, scared to see Jesse, with A.D.D., actually "taking it easy". I was looking forward to seeing Mia, though. She had been angry, too, at Le and I for taking off like that, but she's totally over it. I knew I could count on her to make everything okay again. My brain drifted to that girl I helped out at the beach, and why she had run away. I guess it was a mystery that I'd never solve, but I'd have the busted up knuckles for a while.  
  
Beside me, Leon had fallen asleep, with that racket still playing into his head, and was snoring. I put my CD player and magazine away and leaned against Leon and fell into a deep, deep sleep. We slept through dinner. Leon was mad when we landed because it was spaghetti and meatballs, his favorite. 


	6. Shit To Take Care Of

(Dominic's POV)  
  
When Mia told me that Letty and Leon were coming home, my stomach started to do flips. I got all nervous and shit, just like the time when Letty and I had sex for the first time. I still remember that day well. She was eighteen, and I was almost twenty-one. I had recently gotten home from prison, serving time for beating Kenny Linder into a retard. She looked so damn fine, in those ripped-to-shit low riders that practically showed her ass crack and tight red tank top that revealed her belly button. I knew it was time, and so did she. It was the best night of my life. I told her that I loved her and meant it.  
  
At first I was angry that they were coming home.  
  
"Why, Mia? Why are they suddenly coming home after not talking to us for a year and a fucking half?" I bellowed to Mia the night after she announced their little news to me.  
  
"Dom, they were scared. They thought that they'd be turned in!" Mia snapped. She continued to stir the pasta that was simmering on the stove.  
  
"For a year and a half?"  
  
"Look, it's not easy for them. You put them in great danger, Dom, with your hijacking stunt. You should have listened to Letty when she told you it wasn't right and that you shouldn't be doing it without Jesse."  
  
"Who told you that?" I demanded. "Did Letty?"  
  
"No, Dom. You did, remember? When you were crying to me that night on the phone from Mexico?"  
  
"Fuck, I just don't know if I'm ready to see her."  
  
"Why, you've been crying all over her room and I even hear you talking to her! When is it gonna stop, Dom? Are you gonna be loony forever or just until someone snaps you out of it?"  
  
"Fuck, no, I'm not gonna be loony forever. I want to see her so damn bad, but I'm not sure if I'm still angry with her for abandoning me, that's all."  
  
"Dom, you love her. She loves you. It'll be fine." Mia walked over to me and kissed the top of my fuzzy head. She looked into my sad eyes.  
  
"When you see her, for the first time, the love that you had for her when she left will all come flooding back, you wait and see." Mia went back to her pasta, leaving me at the kitchen table to bury my head in my hands and cry my heart out over Letty for the seven-hundredth time in nearly two years.  
  
I was too lost in my sorrow to even notice the phone ringing ten minutes later. I heard Mia put down the spoon and walk across the kitchen to answer it.  
  
"Hello, Toretto residence," Mia answered.  
  
"Hey, Mia, how you livin' girl?" said a familiar but tired voice that sounded like they were talking in a tin can.  
  
"Letty, hi! How are you guys? What's up with your phone?" My heart leapt at the sound of Letty's name.  
  
"Fine, how about everyone over there? I dunno what's wrong with this damn thing."  
  
"They're hungry, even though it's ten-thirty at night!" laughed Mia.  
  
"Leon and I are hungry, too. Whaddya makin'?"  
  
"Ravioli and tomato sauce. What are you and Leon gonna have? I remember you guys telling me that Big Kahuna place was pretty good." Mia began mixing the pasta with the sauce. She turned off the burners and put a lid on the ravioli pot.  
  
"Well, we were hopin' we could catch some ravioli before it's all gone."  
  
"What are you saying, Letty."  
  
"Save some for us, we're at the airport!" I heard Letty squeal. Mia began screaming.  
  
"OH, MY GOD! YOU GUYS ARE HERE! Why so soon!?" Mia cried.  
  
"We cancelled the lease on our house, sold the stupid cars - well, gave one away to the airport parking lot - and, well, here we are." Letty sounded pretty proud of herself.  
  
"Do you want someone to pick you guys up?" Mia wanted to know.  
  
"That would be great," Letty said.  
  
"Okay, I'll have Vince go and get you guys. Just hang tight until he gets there, okay?"  
  
"Sure, we're at the United Airlines terminal and we have five boxes!"  
  
"Okay, maybe I should go with him. I've got some room in the Integra," Mia said.  
  
"So we'll see you guys soon?" asked Letty.  
  
"Yeah. Oh, I'm so glad you guys are coming home!" Mia's lower lip began trembling.  
  
"Us, too, Mi. See you later."  
  
"Bye, Lett." The girls hung up. Mia turned to me, her tears spilling over. She must have been glad that the team would be together again at last. I turned away from her and got up.  
  
"Where are you going, Dom?" She frowned and sniffled.  
  
"To the garage. I have some shit do take care of," I growled. I grabbed my keys and went out the back door to our garage. A few seconds later, Mia heard me peel out of the driveway in the RX-7. Vince walked into the kitchen and found Mia crying. He wrapped her into a huge hug and kissed her forehead.  
  
"Where's Dominic goin'?" Vince growled.  
  
"To the garage, at freaking ten forty-five at night. He just found out that Letty and Leon are coming back tonight. We need to pick them up at the airport, okay? They have five boxes to bring back," said Mia, drying her tears on Vince's dirty wife beater.  
  
"Today? So soon? Well, I guess so," Vince said, a little surprised at Letty and Leon's hastiness, but happy they were coming back so soon.  
  
"Okay, let's go." With that, Mia and Vince grabbed their keys and roared off in the Maxima and the Integra. 


	7. Home At Last, But Where's Dominic?

(Letty's POV)  
  
Leon and I walked to the baggage claim and rented two of those cart things. We wheeled them to the huge conveyor belts that had begun moving a bunch of people's shit toward us.  
  
"Lett, wheel your cart over here! I think I see a box!" Leon called. That heinous hat on his head made it easy to spot him in the thick crowd. I ran toward him with the cart and sure enough, one of our boxes was making its way down the conveyor belt. Leon grabbed it and lifted it off the belt. He jammed it into my cart.  
  
"Here, let's wait for the others." He spotted another box and heaved it into his cart. I spotted one and chucked it into my cart.  
  
"That's all I'm gonna carry, they're pretty heavy." I struggled to push the cart away from the crowd. Leon retrieved our other two boxes and loaded them into his cart. He dragged his cart to where I was waiting and we both lugged the carts and our duffel bags outside. We were not the only ones waiting for rides. Several other passengers from our plane, wearing stupid leis and ugly Hawaiian shirts were milling around us. It was noisy and confusing. Leon and I were in the thick of the crowd and were just about to call Mia and Vince on their cell phones when we heard someone screaming my name.  
  
"LETTY! LETTY, OVER HERE!" screamed a girl. Le and I turned towards the voice and saw that it was attached to a slim girl with long brown hair and a big smile. Mia! Mia began running toward us, followed by a scruffy guy with a majorly messed up arm. Oh, God. It was Vince! They reached us and suddenly, I was swept off of my feet by a pair of skinny little arms. Mia was actually holding me off the ground.  
  
"Letty, I missed you guys so much!" cried Mia, tears rolling down her cheeks. She squeezed me into another tight hug. When we parted, I heard Leon speak to Vince.  
  
"I thought you weren't hungry, pumpkin." Vince looked like he was ready to punch Leon, probably still angry with him for leaving. Then, a huge grin spread across his face and Vince scooped Leon into the biggest hug that a guy could give another guy. They both began laughing and Vince clapped Leon on the back.  
  
"How the fuck have you been, brotha?"  
  
"Livin' the life in Hawaii, dawg!"  
  
"Meet any hot chicks?"  
  
"Hell, yeah! This one named Olga." Mia and I decided against listening any more. Mia began squealing at me.  
  
"You look so tired, Lett! Let's get you guys home. There's a fresh pot of ravioli on the stove, that is, if Jesse didn't eat it all." I picked up Leon's and my duffel bags and threw them over my shoulder.  
  
"You look different, Lett." Vince peered at me, as we began walking to where a baby blue Integra and navy blue Maxima were parked along the curb not far away. Leon and Vince were dragging the carts of boxes.  
  
"Yeah, too much time in the sun. My highlights grew out," I pointed out. We continued walking until we reached Vince's Maxima. He pressed a button on his key remote and the trunk began to lift up.  
  
"Ha ha, the old Coyote's still got his blue nightrider!" cackled Leon. Vince turned toward him.  
  
"I can't run it like I used to, dawg."  
  
"I heard, sorry, man."  
  
"It's aiight. I took your job, on the scanners!" Vince exclaimed. Leon cracked up.  
  
"No problemo, dawg." Just then, they heard my pissed off voice float through the air.  
  
"WHAT THE FUCK!" I screamed. I was violently trying to cram one of my boxes into Mia's trunk and didn't want to admit that it wouldn't fit.  
  
"Letty," Mia chided gently, as people began to turn around to see who had shouted so vulgarly. I ignored her and still tried to get the box in. Vince and Leon walked over to the Integra.  
  
"She's a little edgy about seein' Dom tonight," announced Leon. "She's been like this all day." Mia and Vince nodded. Finally, I won the battle and smushed the box into the trunk and slammed it.  
  
"Mother fucker," I spat at the closed trunk. Mia, Vince, and Leon all exchanged worried glances.  
  
"Uh, Lett," Leon began. "Calm down, aiight. It's just a fuckin' box."  
  
"The hell it is." I gave him one of my notorious dark stares and folded my arms across my chest. Vince had walked back to the Maxima and put the last of the boxes in.  
  
"Let's roll!" he shouted. With that, Leon scrambled into the Maxima with Vince at the wheel and Mia decided to let me drive the Integra home. Our two cars roared out of the airport.  
  
"Wooo hooo!" I hollered out the open window, as we followed Vince down the highway toward Echo Park in L.A., where the fort was. "It feels SO FUCKING GREAT to drive a decent car again!" Mia laughed.  
  
"What did you have in Hawaii?" Mia asked. I turned to her.  
  
"Some old-ass, beat-to-hell-and-back 1985 Iroc-Z Camaro," I said. "Probly fast as hell but needed a lot of fucking work."  
  
"What did Leon drive?"  
  
"A wreck of a Cutlass." I concentrated hard to cross a four-lane highway. I exited at the Echo Park sign and pulled onto a less-congested highway. Mia laughed, probly at the thought of Leon and me, car-lovers of the universe, driving junkyard vehicles.  
  
"At least it was wheels," pointed out Mia.  
  
"Hell yeah, but too bad I was afraid to take the car over 40," I laughed. I quickly sobered up. We drove along in silence. Mia probly figured that I was scared shitless about seeing Dominic but kept quiet.  
  
When we pulled into the driveway of the fort, only three cars were there. Mine, Leon's yellow Skyline, and a new car - a Honda Civic SI, painted SI blue and looked as though there were 50 large under the hood of that monster. I pulled the Integra in next to the Civic and wondered whose car that was and where Dom's Mazda was.  
  
"Whose.where's." I trailed off. Mia unbuckled her seatbelt.  
  
"Jesse's new car. The Trans shot the Jetta to shit, remember? But even though we fixed it up, it didn't look the same. We sold it and Jesse got the SI from someone in Hector's circuit." Mia opened her door and got out. I opened mine and slowly stepped out, drinking in the sight of the two- story house in front of me where I grew up. It left goose bumps along my dark arms. Leon and Vince, who started out ahead but ended up getting there a few minutes after we did, roared up in the Maxima. They jumped out.  
  
"It's so good to be back!" hollered Leon. He bent down and kissed the driveway. Vince and Mia laughed at him.  
  
"Start getting the boxes, Vince." Mia ran up to the front door and threw it open. I followed her slowly with my hands jammed in the pockets of my Dickies.  
  
"JESS!" she called. "Come on down here!"  
  
"KAY, MIA!" Jesse's voice floated down from upstairs. Mia ran back to the cars. I stood on the porch. A few seconds later, Jesse trotted down the stairs and stopped in the doorway.  
  
"How you livin', Jess?" I asked quietly. He gave me a huge ass smile and grabbed me into an even huger ass hug.  
  
"Letty! How's my big sister?" exclaimed Jesse. He pulled away and slung his arm across my shoulders. He walked me to the Maxima, where everyone had gathered.  
  
"Fine, how 'bout you? I heard about the Trans," I told Jesse.  
  
"I'm doin' okay now, Lett. Don't worry about me." Jesse smiled again and gave me one final hug.  
  
"I'm glad the team is back together," Jesse told everyone. He noticed Leon looking at him. He had gotten tears in his eyes the second he saw Jesse in the doorway. Jesse slowly made his way to Leon, as if he were afraid to go near him.  
  
"You okay, little brother?" Leon asked gruffly. Jesse nodded and ran the rest of the way to Leon. He leapt into Leon's arms and they hugged for a very long time, clapping each other on the back occasionally and mumbling things to each other while Vince looked on. Mia and I smiled and each took a box from Vince's trunk and began to carry them up to the house.  
  
As soon as we got inside, I dropped my box and began looking around for a certain someone who hadn't run out to greet us. Mia noticed as she put her box next to mine.  
  
"Don't worry, Letty. He knows that tonight's the night." She smiled and pulled me to her in a hug. "Go upstairs, okay?" I knew that she was right, so I took one of my boxes and hauled it upstairs. The next morning I would go and check out my baby that was waiting for me in the driveway. She would have to wait. Mama Letty was tired. 


	8. Like She Never Left

(Dom's POV)  
  
I pulled up to the house in the RX-7 about an hour after Leon and Letty came home. There was hardly any space for my car, so I pulled it into the driveway leading to the garage. I shut the door, locked my car, and headed down the driveway and up the front walk to the front door. I stood on the stoop for a minute or two. For the first time in my life, I was scared to see my family. I was scared to see Leon, after him bailing on us; I was scared to see Mia, because of the way I left her crying a few hours earlier; most of all, I was scared shitless to see my Letty.  
  
Had her looks changed? Had she met someone else? Or did she screw every cute Hawaiian surfer dude she saw? The thought angered me. I conjured up images in my mind that made me shudder. She probly let some punk Hawaiian kid, named Leilano or Kahuna or went by the nickname of "Big John", fuck her in the back of a dorky Saab just so she could borrow his surfboard for the day. I allowed the images to stay with me as I pushed open the front door.  
  
I let myself inside and heard laughter coming from the kitchen. I shut the front door quietly and made my way to the kitchen. They were all standing around the kitchen, drinking Coronas. Mia was drinking Sprite. When I stood in the doorway, everyone fell silent. I glared at Leon.  
  
"What're you doin' here?" I growled. Leon turned pale. I let a slow smile creep across my face. Leon caught on about my joke and let out a relieved sigh, the color returning to his fuzzy cheeks. We all started laughing, booming, loud guffaws that shook the room.  
  
"C'mere and give me a hug, asshole," I barked. Leon jumped up and threw his arms around me and clapped me on the back.  
  
"How've ya been, Dom?" Leon asked. He rubbed the top of my stubbly head.  
  
"At the garage a lot. Was there just now finishing up some paperwork," I said. I kissed Mia on the cheek, a silent apology for running out on her earlier. She smiled at me. I did that guy handshake thing (that's what Mia and Letty call it) with Vince and Jesse.  
  
"You wanna beer?" asked Vince. He held out a Corona. I took it and began gulping it down. When I finished it a few seconds later, I began looking around the kitchen and looked behind me into the living room. Jesus, where was that girl?  
  
"She's upstairs, dawg." Leon said quietly, reading my mind. I nodded and set down the empty bottle. I headed out of the kitchen, removing my shirt on the way, leaving me in boxers and baggy blue jeans. It was so hot outside AND in the house. I reminded myself to tell Mia to call up the air conditioning guy in the morning.  
  
As I walked up the stairs, the stupid surfer dude images that had been with me earlier were suddenly flying out the window. I felt nothing but fear, apprehension, about how Letty was going to react to me being upstairs with her. My hands shook and my heart began to beat at a feverish pace. My palms were sweaty and I could barely make it up the stairs quietly without my knees going weak. I made it to the bedroom door without collapsing. Funny, I know. Me? Dominic Toretto? Scared shitless about something? It was a new side of me that had evolved from after the heists. I'd have to look into that. I hoped Letty wouldn't EVER find out that I slept with some t- shirt of hers and her pillow.  
  
I heard music the second I reached the door. Some kinda surfer music or somethin', I guessed. I recognized it as that band Sublime, who sings about getting wasted all the time. It wasn't that loud, though. It was floating through me and Letty's partially opened bedroom door. I smelled something different, too. Like coconuts or something. I stepped up to the door and looked inside. I didn't see Letty, just some empty boxes lying around and a lit candle on the dresser. That silly music filled the room. I quietly pushed open the door, stepped cautiously inside, and shut it. I sniffed deeply. I realized that the candle was coconut scented. Bad-ass Letty had turned our bedroom into a Hawaiian Tiki hut.  
  
A very dark-skinned girl with long, straight black hair came into view. Her hair was so black that it seemed almost purple. It was shiny. She was wearing only a lacy black bra and matching black bikini underwear that seemed to make her brown skin glow. Letty. Holy shit. She had bigger.everything. Her ass was bigger and her tits were bigger. How.why.I couldn't form sentences. She had on a hemp necklace and was singing along with the music. She was so beautiful, so exotic-looking that I had too look away from her for a second or else my eyes would turn into ashes. She no longer looked like skinny, don't-fuck-with-me-I-have-permanent-PMS Letty Rodriguez that helped Vince and Leon and I hijack a truck in a dirty wife beater and ugly pants. And what was with that underwear? I was baffled.  
  
She knew I was standing there. She had to have known. She didn't turn around or acknowledge me, but I knew for a fact that she sensed me. Letty has that sixth sense about her. My presence is so overpowering to her. After all, she's known me for fourteen years. She knows me deeper than she knows herself, and vice versa. Letty is the only person that I have ever allowed to know me that way.  
  
She had been bouncing and swaying to the music, and continued to do so, her hips dipping and sinking into the rhythms of the song. At one point in the song the music jumped and she dropped to the floor and slapped the cool terra cotta tiles beneath her. She bounced back up and continued to sway, her body taking on familiar motions that reminded me of.damn, my pants were getting too tight.  
  
I tiptoed up behind her, making sure not to make a sound. I placed my hands low on her bare hips; they were warm and slightly damp from sweat. They seemed to burn my sweaty hands. She continued to dance, twisting and swaying and turning me on. She also continued to ignore me; she was so wrapped up in the music. I pulled her against my half naked body. She sighed heavily, resting her sweaty body against my chest and continuing to sway. Her long hair stuck loosely to my damp chest. I moved my hands to the front of her hips and moved with her. Her hips still dipped and twisted against my crotch, making my pants even tighter. I watched them over her shoulder. I loved her hips; they were made for sex. Yeah. Could sink into any rhythm, fast or slow.  
  
"Letty." I whispered, surprising myself with how deep my voice was and how horny it sounded. Since she still had her back to me, she leaned her head back against my shoulder and sighed again.  
  
"Yeah, Dom?" she mumbled, her voice heavy with desire.  
  
"You move like.like sex when you dance," I mumbled. She grunted, low in her chest. I'd never heard her grunt like that before. It was very sexy. I turned her around with my hands and brought them up to the tops of her arms. The song ended and a new one began, but this time Letty didn't start to sashay around the room like Christina Aguilera or somethin'. I ran my fingertips down her arms until they left a wake of goose bumps. I stared into her big black eyes.  
  
"I haven't." Letty began.  
  
"Me, neither." Letty raised her eyebrows at me. Almost like she didn't believe me, but I knew she did. I pulled her closer to me and bent to kiss her. She responded immediately, her arms curling around my neck and her lips opening for me to taste the inside of her sweet mouth.  
  
"God, Dom." Letty murmured against my lips. She began to run her hands over my upper body, across the muscles that lay within. She loved to do that. I picked her up, a little surprised at how much heavier she was than before when I used to do that.  
  
"You're a little chubby there, Lett," I whispered. She nodded, somewhat ashamed of her now ghetto booty.  
  
"Too many coconuts," she whispered back, smiling, her voice still heavy with desire. I carried her over to our king-sized bed, which was strewn with clothing and other odds and ends. I laid her down and placed her head on her pillow. I gently removed her black lacy underwear, wondering where she got such a sexy garment. I asked her about it.  
  
"Leon bought them for me in Hawaii."  
  
"Leon?" I asked.  
  
"Yeah, he didn't see me in them, though." Letty smirked.  
  
"Mmmm," I grunted, pleased at having the task to remove the pretty things. I whisked off the lacy bra, which I had seen before, and tossed the two, although pretty, unwanted items to the side of the bed. I gaped at the sight before me.  
  
Now, Letty had always been a blessed woman, but God blessed her WAY too much after she left. I wondered what happened to her.  
  
"Lett, you didn't get a boob job, did you?" I grumbled to her, while running my hands up and down her sides. I knew the answer to that, glad that Letty wasn't the type to want to mutilate herself with silicone.  
  
"No, Dom. I'm on the Pill now. The Pill does that to your tits."  
  
"Soooo, no more condoms?" I whispered huskily.  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Fuck, yeah." I groaned, a low rumble that began deep in my massive chest. I began to kiss her again. After a minute, she began to pull at my pants to get me to take them off. I slid them off and soon, I was as naked as she was. When I slid into her, she was so tight and wet and.oh, God. I shuddered.  
  
I fucked Letty kinda hard; I hoped she didn't mind. I wanted to last for a long time, though I knew it would be hard. This whole no-condom thing was mind blowing. I had to hold myself back from busting two minutes after we started because I was so sex starved. After I thought of ballets and operas for, like, the fifth time, Letty began to go wildcat on me. She started clawing at my back and shit, purring and growling and needing her own release.  
  
"Shit, Dom." I felt her tighten up and relax, then tighten up and relax. Finally she tightened up and I felt her come beneath me. She began to scream my name over and over until her spasms stopped. Fuck, the girl was loud. I'm pretty sure everyone downstairs knew what we were up to. She kept going, though. She kept moving until all of my seed had spurted inside of her core. I came pretty hard, grunting and groaning loud enough to wake the dead. I must have said her name over and over like, eight times. Damn.  
  
I collapsed on top of her. She didn't protest. I knew Letty liked to feel my weight on top of her after we had sex. After awhile, though, she nudged me to roll off of her. When I rolled over, she immediately snuggled up next to me. I put my arm around her.  
  
"Welcome home," I grumbled, my voice deep and heavy with exhaustion. It was nearly one in the morning. Letty smiled against my chest.  
  
"I love you, Dom," she told me.  
  
"I love you, too." I breathed in, smelled her wonderful Letty smell and thanked God I could hold her again. It was almost as if she never left. 


	9. News From Arecibo

(Letty's POV)  
  
It was about noon on Monday morning when I stirred awake the morning after I slept with Dominic. The sun was shining brightly and it was hot out. As fucking usual, I thought. California is always hot and bright. I squinted and peered out the window from my warm spot in the bed. The only cars there were Mia's and mine. I sighed and rolled over. I knew Dom wouldn't be there next to me because he liked to be at the DT shop before nine every morning, and he took the rest of the guys with him.  
  
I laid there for a minute or two, thinking about the events of the previous night. I smiled happily, glad that everything was back to normal and hopefully nothing, NOTHING, would change that ever again. Dom was now making money the legal way, with the shop and the grocery store and the occasional street races he bet in on. Mia runs the shop between classes. It's getting busy in there and Mia's glad because before our only customers used to be old people, punk kids who always stiffed her, and Brian O'Connor. I think Mia still hopes he'll come back to her someday, but I personally believe that hope of hers is kinda shady.  
  
I got out of bed and threw on some clean underwear, baggy jeans, and a slutty red tank top with the words Skunk2 Racing on it. I pulled my hair back into a messy ponytail and left our bedroom. After I'd eaten breakfast, I was supposed to go to the garage and help Dom look through the parts books and order more stuff for his little shop. I figured I'd have a bowl of cereal or two and head over there.  
  
When I reached the kitchen, Mia came into view. She was sitting at the kitchen table, arguing with someone on the phone. The L.A. phone directory was lying open in front of her. I stood there and watched her, listening to the conversation. I immediately wished I hadn't put pants on. It was hotter than hell in this damn house.  
  
"No, I would like you guys to come here toDAY and look at the air conditioner!" Mia was exclaiming. "NO, I don't wanna wait until next week! It's so hot in this house that heat waves are coming off the floor! No lie!" I left Mia shouting at the table and went to the refrigerator to get a Corona. I sipped it while their conversation continued.  
  
"There's probly some idiot who's just too lazy to-" she stopped talking. "Hold on, I have another call." Mia pressed a button on the phone and spoke into it. "Hello?" Mia paused. "Leticia? No, this is her friend. I'll get her for you, hold on just a sec." Mia clicked back over to the air conditioning guy. "Listen, this isn't over. My friend has another call waiting. I'll call you back as soon as I can." With that, Mia smashed a slender finger down on the Flash button and hung up on the asshole.  
  
I watched all of this with great interest, wondering what the fuck the person on the other line wanted with me. "Hello? Here she is," Mia said before handing me the phone.  
  
"Yeah, this's Leticia," I said, frowning. I gulped down the last of my Corona.  
  
"Hello, Leticia, this is Maria calling from the Arecibo Police Department," a woman with at thick Spanish accent said to me. Arecibo. Oh, shit. This has to be about my mother. Arecibo is where I was born, a little town in northern Puerto Rico. Where my mother ran off to with her asshole of a lover. My stomach flip-flopped and horrible thoughts ran through my head. Leticia, your mother escaped from a mental institution here and is going to LA to find you. Leticia, your mother married her lover and they want you to move back to Puerto Rico to be a family. I turned pale.  
  
"Who is that?" Mia mouthed. I waved her off.  
  
"Um, hi," I said quietly to Maria.  
  
"I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. I'm very sorry. Your mother was found dead in her apartment this morning. We have a Mr. Jose Ramirez being held in custody, he is a prime suspect in this case."  
  
My heart skipped a beat. My mother was dead. I didn't have to worry about her escaping to find me. She was dead. For a minute, I couldn't speak. So many emotions were running through me and I didn't know which one to feel. Hurt and pain that my mother was gone, shame for hating her, love for my father, hate for that greasy asshole who was suspected of killing her and probably did kill her, grief for her and my father. They were all so overwhelming and draining. I was an orphan. Mia was staring at me, looking very alarmed.  
  
"Leticia, are you there, mamita?"  
  
"Yeah," I grumbled, when I found my voice. "Sorry."  
  
"It's okay. Listen; since you have family here in Arecibo, you don't need to come. But I urge you to at least call your grandmother and go from there, okay?"  
  
"Yeah, thanks," I mumbled. I hung up. Mia rushed over to me and took the phone.  
  
"Letty? Letty, what happened?" she asked. I continued to stare at the refrigerator.  
  
"My mom died," I told her. Mia turned pale and her eyes went wide.  
  
"Oh, Letty, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." Mia threw her arms around me and rocked me back and forth. She didn't ask any questions, like how or when. She just held me. I appreciated her sympathy, but I needed to be alone at my secret chill spot. I hugged her back and told her so.  
  
"I'll be back later. If Dom calls, tell him I'll look at parts magazines with him some other time, aiight?" Mia brushed a loose strand of hair out of my eyes.  
  
"Sure, Letty, I will." She smiled sadly at me as I turned to grab my keys next to the toaster. As I walked outside, I saw her, through the window, flop down at the table and pick up the phone, probly getting ready to bitch out the air conditioning guys again.  
  
Three and a half hours later, I was driving through L.A. in the 240. My head was clearing, and I felt better about everything. Enough time at my secret chill spot will do that to ya. Even though I loved my mother, I knew that it wasn't my fault that she died. It was HER choice to bail on my dad and run off, back to P.R. with that stupid asshole. She didn't know things would end up like this, no one ever does. She took a chance and she made her decision.  
  
I couldn't be that upset by her death, though. I felt like going up to her dead body and screaming, "I told you so!" right in her cold, blue face. "I told you so, Mom! That's what you get for leaving Papi and running away from your bullshit problems! You're DEAD! See how far that got you? The jerk-off you chose to be with over my loving father KILLED you. I guess he really cared about you, huh? He cared enough to throw you into a fucking grave."  
  
But she's my mother, and at one time I did love her. I laughed to myself as I turned onto my street. She really had it coming, I thought. I wasn't upset or shocked anymore. I was calm and collected. I looked at my mother's death as a lesson. For me to never end up like her, all fucked up and shit. It was just another one of life's doors hitting me in the ass on the way out. 


	10. Tein Springs or Skunk2?

Dom's POV  
  
I looked at the clock on my office wall. Four-thirty on the dot. Being that Letty was back in town, I asked her to help me order new parts for the performance shop in my garage. She was supposed to be here hours ago. I had already been sitting in the cool, air conditioned room for an hour, waiting. The air felt so good on my half naked body because it was so damn hot in my house. I sure hoped the air conditioning guys were gonna come sometime today to fix everything.  
  
I heard Vince and Leon talking in a heated discussion, over the engine of a yellow Type-R that they said had been brought in for a quick tune-up by a fine-ass, familiar-looking chick an hour and a half ago while I was under an old Supra, about a Swedish person named Olga who supposedly, according to Leon, had the tits of the century. I was reading the ordering books for Eibach and AEM and I wanted Letty's opinion on everything I ordered.  
  
Where the fuck was she? I had my feet on the desk and was sipping a Corona when I heard the familiar squeal of tires pull up to one of the garage doors. Vince and Leon stopped talking and I heard the door of a car slam shut.  
  
"Whatchu boys lookin' at?" I heard Letty's snapping voice cut through the air of the garage like a knife. I took my feet off the desk and threw down the ordering books. I wanted a damn good explanation from her and I wanted it now. I flexed my muscles evilly and stomped out to where Letty was standing, arms crossed across her chest and glaring playfully at Vince and Leon. Vince was practically drooling at the sight of her in that slutty red tank top and those pants that practically showed everything God gave her.  
  
When I came into view, I barked at Vince.  
  
"Yeah, whatchu boys lookin' at?" I growled. "Get a rag and wipe up that drool, asshole." Vince turned red and accidentally banged his head on the open hood of the banana Integra and cursed when he attempted to focus his attention on something other than my girlfriend. Leon laughed like a hyena for five minutes straight and helped him get cleaned up. Letty was looking at me, her eyes full of guilt.  
  
"So where were you, Let? You were supposed to be here hours ago," I asked her, my voice softer. I took her by the shoulders and pulled her closer to me.  
  
"My mom died." She didn't look at all broken up about it. I looked at her like I didn't understand.  
  
"How?" I asked, stunned. "When?"  
  
"The Arecibo PD called this morning while you and the guys were at the garage. A lady told me over the phone. Said she was murdered by the greasy asshole she ran away with when I was ten. They found her body this morning, and the jerk-off is the prime suspect. So I just needed to be alone, and I totally forgot that I was supposed to come and help you, Dom. I remember you saying that shit last night before we went to sleep and I totally forgot and-"  
  
I cut her off. "Letty, it's okay. I'm so sorry to hear about your mother, you know that, right? I'm not pissed at you." I held her close to me and she practically melted onto my torso.  
  
"Thanks, Dommy."  
  
"So what're ya gonna do? Are you goin' to Puerto Rico?" I asked her. She shook her head.  
  
"Nope, don't have to and don't want to. I just wanna forget about all this, okay?"  
  
I nodded. "You still wanna go look at the ordering books?" I asked, not sure if she'd want to after everything she'd been through. She smiled that wonderful Letty smile, despite her mother, nodded, and sashayed through the open office door. I followed her with a stupid smile on my face that I heard Vince and Leon begin chuckling at.  
  
When we were inside, I flopped back down into my desk chair and Letty sprawled out across the desk. I picked up the Eibach ordering book and began flipping to a page to some springs that I was thinking about ordering. While I was flipping, Letty spoke up.  
  
"So whadja do to my Silvia?" she countered. I looked up at her and stopped flipping. A slow smile spread across my face.  
  
"Listen, there's 'supposedly' a race Friday night down in Hector's section of town. I was thinking about taking the team to check things out, maybe bet in on a few. If you run her, you'll find out then."  
  
Letty smiled. "Well, then. Onto the next subject, who's Teg is that?"  
  
"Some customer, a chick that Vince and Leon said was fine as fuck and looked familiar. Maybe Vince'll get laid when she picks it up."  
  
"Ha, doubtful!" Letty cracked. Her black eyes were sparkling. "Hey, Dom, I just wanna tell ya that I'm glad to be back. I missed you a lot."  
  
"Right back atcha, Mami." I bent up to give her a steamy kiss. Just before it was over, we heard Vince and Leon's voices mixed with a girl's voice. Letty and I peeked out the door and saw a golden blonde head atop of a dark-tanned girl wearing red shorts and a yellow Mugen t-shirt. We couldn't see her face but we could hear Vince as he tripped over his voice over and over. Letty stifled tee-hees and chuckles as we watched Vince make his smooth moves. We heard her polite but definite 'no, thank you' when Vince asked her to go to Cha Cha Cha with him on a date.  
  
"He's so great when it comes to the ladies," Letty whispered sarcastically. The chick handed Leon some money and climbed into the Type- R. She roared off.  
  
"Damn," I said under my breath. Luckily, Letty didn't hear me because she had just busied herself by looking at the AEM book.  
  
"You orderin' intakes and shit, too?" she said, holding up the AEM book.  
  
I sighed. "Yeah. I also wanna get twelve sets of Eibach springs. Niggaz'll pay double the price we get 'em for cuz Harry doesn't sell Eibachs. Harry also doesn't sell Tein springs, just Ground Controls and H & Rs. I think he sells Skunk2, but who the hell gives a shit?"  
  
"Well, Harry charges too damn much for his shit, anyways, Dom."  
  
"I know. That's why everybody'll come here. They can get their springs and have them installed in one visit." I picked up the Tein springs book and began leafing through it. Letty shifted her weight onto her other arm and peered at me. I felt her eyes on me and looked up at her.  
  
"What, Lett?"  
  
"Nothin'," she replied. "I love you, Dommy."  
  
I smiled at her and tousled her ebony hair. "I love ya too, Lett." 


	11. A Fee For Juan's Change

Letty's POV  
  
It's been almost a week since Leon and I came back to L.A. Everyone's relieved that the heists are over and the team is back under one roof, alive and well. Everyone except one person. Poor Mia got a phone call from Brian O'Connor on Tuesday night. He asked how everyone was doing, especially her, and although he truly loved her when he lived in L.A., he moved on with his life in Miami and is now dating someone named Monica Fuentes.  
  
That bastard. I would have strangled him myself if I'da gotten hold of 'im. You don't call up your ex-girlfriend suddenly, and tell her about some new chick you're fucking. You just don't do that. So, as a result of Brian O'Asshole's call, Mia's gotten quiet and sits on the window seat in the living room, crying and drinking. Yes, drinking. Mia's drank more Coronas this week than all of us combined. I'm still waiting for Dom to go and snap her out of it, cuz all of us have tried to talk to her except him. She cries because her life was nearly ruined by Dominic's tirade with the hijackings. She wants to go to medical school but is afraid that Dominic'll want her to work in the garage office the rest of her life and say that he needs her more than anything.  
  
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I can't believe that Mia's holding out on something like college. Dom'll have a heart attack when he finds out that's how she feels. Then again, we're still waiting for Dominic to go and snap her out of her trance and have a sister to brother talk.  
  
This whole week has been rough for all of us. Leon's having a tough time dealing with Jesse and V. It's hard for him to see his best friends take so many pills to keep the pain away. Leon also realized that he left that hideous hat at the airport. Can't say I'm not glad, ya know?  
  
Vince and Jesse are, of course, have recovered. They still, however, take pain pills daily and will probably have to for the next few years until they completely and fully heal. Vince's arm is still a mess and every time I look at it, I feel like crying. After my car rolled over on the day of the last heist, I got some bumps and bruises, but nothing like Vince's arm. I was lucky.  
  
Since I've been home, Dom and I have had to get used to living together again. With Mia's bullshit, and the rest of the guys, we've been sorta tough on each other this week. It's not been fun, between my mother's death and all. We're dealing, just in all of our own ways. Everyone expects me to be so broken up about my mom, but I just brush them off. It's no big deal. She's no big deal.  
  
On Friday afternoon, Dominic and I were running the garage by our selves and our tempers were flaring every now and then because we were so cranky. We were incredibly busy because it was the weekend, and all the cats want their tricked out rides ready for the Friday and Saturday night races. It was also fucking hot out, too, and the garage's fans weren't enough to keep us cool. Dom was sitting in the office with a binder full of paperwork. I had been under this whacked-up Altima, scheduled for a six o'clock pick-up, for four hours straight and I was tired of having oil and grease drip onto my face and into my hair.  
  
I heard Dominic's heavy footsteps approach the Altima until the tips of his worn black boots were within my view.  
  
"Dom, hand me that wrench sitting up on top of the tool chest," I asked him from under the car. I heard him walk over to the tool chest and pick up a wrench. Then he walked it back over to me and dropped to his haunches. I saw his dirty, yet muscular arm poke under the car next to me. I glanced at the wrench in his hand and sighed, obviously exasperated and frustrated.  
  
"No, you stupid fuck, the bigger one, with the rubber grip thing on it." Dominic rose and dropped the wrench with a loud clatter.  
  
"Get it yourself," came the hellishly evil reply. I heard his footsteps retreat and walk back into the office. I growled angrily and scooted out from under the Altima. I got to my feet and stomped over to the tool chest. I chose the wrench I wanted and stomped back to the Altima with it. I scooted back under the car, twisted a few things here and there, and finally scooted back out again. I sighed with a smile, glad that the thing was finally finished. I spotted Dominic watching me out of the corner of my eye. His eyes could have killed a fucking snake.  
  
I was so dirty. My hair was sweaty and dirty; my white tank top was now gray and black, and my cargos were greasy and oily. I stood with my back to Dom and let my long hair out of the messy ponytail it was in. I swung my head from side to side quickly, to shake out the crease that the gum band had left. I wiped the sweat off of the back of my neck with my hand and stretched, long and slow.  
  
When I was done stretching, I felt a warmth surround me, along with the scent of Dolce & Gabanna and sweat. Dominic was standing behind me. I stood still. Dominic spoke.  
  
"Let's go home." He wrapped his huge arms around my waist from behind. His warm breath tickled the side of my neck as he bent to give me a kiss there. It was a sweet, gentle kiss, an apology for his behavior earlier. I accepted the kiss with a small smile, but it quickly faded.  
  
"What about all the cars?" I asked, my voice a little lower than usual. Dom shrugged. "Well, the Altima's finished. So call the guy and tell him it's ready. Then we'll close up before anyone else comes in." I nodded. "Okay." I stepped out of Dom's arms and sagged toward the cool office. I plopped down onto the faded orange carpet chair that Dom always sits in behind the desk and picked up the phone. I dialed Juan Diego's number and waited until he answered. "Yo, Juan! What's up, man?" "Nothin' much, Letty. You finish my ride?"  
  
"Yeah, it's done. Hurry up and come over, eh? Dom and I are closing up early tonight." "I'll be over in like five minutes, aiight?" "Okay, man. Later," I said. I hung up the phone and rose from the ugly chair. From the window in the office, I saw Dominic shutting the garage doors. He left one open for Juan to drive the Altima out of. I exited the office and stood with my hands on my hips in the doorway. Dominic wiped his greasy hands on a small towel and looked over toward the office. He saw me standing in the doorway. "He coming?" Dom asked me. "Yeah, in a minute." I sniffed. Dominic walked over to me slowly, with a tired smile. "Leticia," Dom began. He placed his large hands on my waist and drew me closer to him. He peered into my tired eyes. "Yeah, Dom?" I asked. "I just wanna tell you that - " Dom trailed off. "Tell me that what, Dom?" I whispered, beginning to get goose bumps up and down my arms. "That you smell REALLY bad." Dom smiled, satisfied that he knew his statement would piss me off. Sure enough, I pushed him away from me. "You smell like shit, too, you know!" Dom was laughing, a long, lazy laugh that you do when you're either drunk or extremely tired. At that moment, a car roared up to the open garage door and Juan Diego got out of the passenger's side. Dom stopped laughing and we both turned to look at Juan. He and Dom did their guy handshake and Juan came over to kiss me on the cheek. "Ey, how is she?" he asked Dom, referring to his baby that sat upon expensive Falken tires and gunmetal Tenzos. "I dunno, Letty here worked on 'er." Dom clapped me on the back as if I were one of his pals from high school. I spoke up. "I had to put in new cams and gears but don't worry, they won't cost ya that much. It'll only be about four-fifty tonight, man." Juan nodded and handed me over a wad of cash. "That'll take care of it, keep the change, Letty." Juan nodded in my direction. "Thanks, bro." I stuffed the wad in one of my many pockets and smiled. Dominic handed Juan his keys and Juan jogged over to his car. He got in and started her up. With a roar and a wave, he sped out of the garage and the car that he had gotten out of followed him. Dominic turned to me. "Hand that over, Letty." He said, with mock seriousness. "Aw, Dom -" Dom cut me off. "Chill, you'll get his change later, if you're good." He smiled at me. "Yeah, for a fee, right?" "Yep."  
With that, Dom went into the office and shut the lights out and locked the door behind him. He headed over to me and we both walked out of the garage, the door shutting behind us because Dom pressed a button before we went under the door. We climbed into my 240 and sped off, toward the fort, ready for a little shower and probably a little fun, too. Heh, heh, heh. 


End file.
